Yo-Yo Ma to perform with Albany Symphony

For the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, 2011 began with a National Medal of Freedom and ended with Kennedy Center Honors and last spring he was given Sweden's Polar Music Prize.

Ma travels the world performing in solo recitals and as a guest artist with the world-famous ensembles. He regularly appears with regional orchestras -- like Albany Symphony Orchestra, whom he will join Saturday at Albany's Palace Theater.

In the greater scheme of such a busy life, how important does he consider such appearances to be? "Unbelievably important," he says, and adds, "I treasure the time I've spent with David Alan Miller (ASO's principal conductor), who I think is absolutely a musician and a human being of the first order, and the musicians I've known at Albany Symphony. The massive effort it takes to pull a group together, making it function at a high level and doing the kind of interesting programming they do, is amazing."

What has Ma been up to the rest of the year? "2012? It's over, right?" Ma replies to an interviewer's query. A long, ruminant pause, and then: "I have no idea" -- and he laughs. "I'm terrible at remembering what I've been up to."

Understandable, and not for lack of activity: for one thing, he released an EP of a musical collaboration with several Brazilian musicians; for another, he has been involved with an intensive community-education project with the Chicago Symphony. For yet more, he's continued work with his Silk Road Project, a musical journey with an international ensemble along the cultural diaspora of Asia and Europe. "I travel to many places," he says simply. "Married 34 years and been gone 22 years -- basically, more than the majority of the time I've been married."

"I spend a lot of time thinking about the intersection between education and culture, and the number of people at the edge of a number of different types of music. When you put them together, interesting things happen." Ma lives at that intersection professionally, noted for his cross-genre collaborations - four of his Grammys have come in the Classical Crossover category.

He will tackle a pair of works on Saturday's program, the highlight being Dvorak's 'Cello Concerto,' a masterpiece, a heartfelt elegy to the composer's beloved sister. "To me, it's about the story of a life," says Ma, who counts the great Pablo Casals as a mentor. "Casals said it was the story of a hero's life. I think it is. Dvorak wrote the piece when he was in New York City, teaching at the National Conservatory. He'd left his family behind in Bohemia, and while writing this work, his sister died, and shortly after, he changed the work, and completed it... there's homesickness in it, a longing for home, a sense of loss. It's very poignant in that sense, a universal sensibility. It's one of my very favorite pieces."

He will also perform a shorter work, 'Elegy for Cello and Orchestra,' by composer and conductor John Williams - for whom Ma has been a frequent guest artist, a performer on numerous film soundtracks, and a friend. "He's an extraordinary person," says Ma.

"Besides looking like Santa Claus and everyone's favorite uncle, he is truly a gentleman and an incredible musician. He is much more than we mostly know him to be, with his film work and the Boston Pops." In particular, Ma cites Williams' massive output of very personal works often composed for special occasions or for friends -- "of which the 'Elegy' is one. I'm very pleased, in his 80th year, that I am able to play a very spontaneous work he wrote in memory of two children who had been murdered."

The coincidence and irony of performing works about sudden loss and grief, especially one involving children, in the wake of the recent Connecticut tragedy, is not lost on him.

"I think at any given time, playing a piece of music, you extrapolate from everything around you that is of human consequence," he says. "From your family, country, the world. All of these things are in the periphery of your consciousness. As a performer, you are drawing from all of that, drawing on the humanity of people leaving their homes at night, to witness a live act of creativity. Audiences and performers are all witnesses to that moment. I kind of pick up the thoughts and energy of what people are thinking about. I do my best to try."